Big Baby - A McRoll in the REAL World Story
by Mari217
Summary: A little. .. or not so little ... story leads to Catherine sharing a touching thought with Steve about his dad.


_Love love love you both, Sammy and Ilna. You make the good days so much fun and the not so good ones ever so much better. Sammy, I still can't get over how the stars had to align for us to meet and form this fabulous trio. Ilna, you always put everything into perspective with one sentence. Xoxox_

 _REAL McRollers, thanks, as always, for the mind blowing support and love for the REAL World._

 _Paula, you're so am_ _azing and generous. Thanks again for the t-shirts! Nonna hugs_

* * *

 **HQ**

 **Saturday 11:45 a.m.**

The team was at HQ on a Saturday following a huge weapons bust. The ATF/FBI had taken custody of the gang members and their leaders, and Five-0 was finishing up with processing the evidence and paperwork.

They'd decided to order food before breaking for the weekend and had just sat down to eat when Catherine entered the break room. She was finishing a call as she took her order from of the box of take out lunches.

"That's great, news, _Aunt_ Carrie. Tell Kevin and Nicole congratulations. And your parents. Text me where we can send a baby gift. I'll talk to you later." She ended the call and turned to Steve with a smile. "Carrie's sister-in-law had the baby."

"So I heard. Everyone alright?" He passed Catherine a water as she took a seat at the table.

"Thanks. Yeah, everyone's good."

Danny smiled. "Boy or girl?"

"Boy. Connor George Stagler. George is after Carrie's grandfather." She held up her phone to share a photo of the newborn.

"That's sweet." Kono smiled and took a bite of her lunch. "He's adorable."

"He was huge." Catherine said as Steve went to the box and took out another sandwich. "Almost ten pounds."

"Ouch." Kono wrinkled her nose in sympathy for the mom. "That's a _big_ baby!"

Danny nodded. "Grace was six pounds, five ounces. She seemed so small, but she had a set of lungs on her. And what a grip." The familiar blue eyes sparkled with absolute love. "She latched onto my finger with that little hand the second I held her. Never felt anything like it."

Chin smiled at Danny, then looked at his cousin. "Kono was eight pounds." He turned to his friends. "I was in the waiting room when she was born. Auntie was asking for my mom, so we all went along. Our family generally has big babies. I was almost nine pounds myself." His smile grew.

Catherine regarded Kono. "Wow, and both your moms are tiny."

"And most of the women in the family are as slim as Kono, not to mention a lot shorter, so ... let's just say they watch the baby's weight gain pretty carefully when they're expecting." He chuckled. "A few of our cousins had to be induced a little early."

"Laugh it up, Cuz, it's funny when _you_ don't have to worry about delivering a nine pounder." Kono winced and tilted her coconut water at her cousin.

"Luckily," she explained to the rest of the team, "we've got all these nutritious eating tips going back to our great grandma. Healthy stuff on how to keep the baby under ten pounds. I don't know how much of it is actually true, but my aunties and cousins swear by Tutu's recipes and ideas to keep their weight gain on target. 'Cause _nobody_ wants to deliver a ten pound baby." She grinned.

Steve took a bite of his shrimp wrap and shrugged. "I was twelve pounds."

Danny snorted. "No way."

Steve leveled a look at his partner. "Twelve pounds, seven ounces, twenty three and a half inches long."

Chin smiled. "It's true, Danny. I saw a copy of the birth announcement. Before the online department newsletter, there used to be a bulletin board at HPD with announcements and 'records'. They added to it, but never took anything down. Steve was still on the biggest baby list when I was a rookie."

"That's like the _ninety fifth_ percentile." Danny shook his head. "Jesus, McGarrett, you were _double_ Grace's birth weight."

Steve crossed his arms and leaned back with a proud expression. "Biggest baby born to a department employee that year. Set the HPD baby pool record; held it 'till I was about eight."

"Holy _crap_ , Boss." Kono shook her head.

Danny rolled his eyes. "Look at you, you're proud of it, like you had something to do with controlling your own birth weight, you animal." He looked around the room. "I can _not_ believe I'm saying this, but, poor Doris."

"From what John said, she was home in twenty four hours," Chin noted. "He told me he had to run out and get three-to-six-month sized baby clothes, because nothing they'd gotten had fit. Including diapers."

He spoke with his usual easy smile and grinned further at the look of happiness in his friend's eyes. Steve was clearly touched that his dad had been telling the story so many years later. Chin also noticed Steve's happy look was, as usual, mirrored by Catherine's.

Danny grinned. "No _wonder_ your sister adopted Joan, she was afraid she'd have a gargantuan kid like you. Probably why they waited a few years between you and Mary. Was she a really big baby, too?"

Steve shrugged. "Not that I remember. She was seven or eight pounds, I think. I just remember being told I had to sit down to hold her so she wouldn't fall." A small smile graced his lips at the memory, and again, Catherine smiled, too.

"If I had a baby that big, it'd be one and _done_. Because, um, _no_." Kono laughed. "Holy shit." Her expression was teasing yet meaningful when she looked at her friend. Catherine colored slightly and exchanged a glance with Steve as Kono continued, "Looks like _you_ may be taking my mom's advice, Cath, 'cause, _damn_ , Steve was a big baby!"

"Hey." Steve grinned. "I was a good eater, too."

Catherine smirked as he stole an olive from her side-salad. "You don't say?"

Steve said, "I'd eat anything. Mary was a pain in the butt, and I'd help by making her laugh so she'd eat. I'd play airplane, she'd laugh and they'd stick the spoon in her mouth. Then, when she got older, she'd look all sad if she didn't like something so I'd finish her vegetables for her."

He was seated next to Catherine at the table and when she caught his expression, she shifted slightly so her calf was gently touching his and gently touched his knee. When something evoked a good memory from his childhood, she always tried to reinforce it.

"That was my job, too." Chin smiled fondly. "When my siblings wanted to get back outside to play, they'd try to pass off their unfinished food to me." He laughed. "Trouble was, I couldn't eat that much that fast."

Kono grinned. "You always did that for me."

" 'Cause you were the baby of the family. And I was older by the time you came along. Besides, a cute baby cousin is so much less troublesome than siblings."

" _Aww_ , Chin." Catherine grinned.

Danny laughed. "Angela just used to distribute her vegetables between the rest of us. Sneaky, that one; always angling." He snarked but Catherine could see the tenderness in his eyes at the memory, and his love for his sisters. "Theresa always fell for it."

"But not _you_?" Steve smirked, remembering how Danny and Angela's sibling rivalry had resulted in the epic snowball fight rematch at Nonna's.

"Not me. I'd threaten to report her to Nonna." He outright laughed. "Not that I ever would. We kids had a code stronger than the Omertà, but Angela didn't know that yet."

"Omertà?" Kono asked.

"The mafia code of silence," Catherine answered as Danny looked her way, surprised. "What? We were in New Jersey for twelve days. I learned things."

* * *

 **Steve McGarrett's truck**

They'd finished lunch and were heading home when Catherine said softly, "Doris told me you were a wonderful baby." They rarely brought his mother up, but she'd remembered an exchange she wanted him to know about.

Steve glanced her way quickly and brought his eyes back to the road. "Did she?"

"Yeah." She nodded. "When I was helping her set up that Christmas. She was putting garlic mashed potatoes in a bowl. She asked if you still liked them, and I said you loved them. Then I stopped, because I thought she might feel awkward that she had no clue what your favorite foods were anymore. I didn't want her to think I was … I don't know, trying to prove something."

Steve huffed a sigh and took his hand off the wheel to rest on her knee. " _You_ have nothing to prove. Ever."

Catherine's own hand covered his and she drew little shapes over his knuckles with her thumb. "I know, I just …" She could feel the tension leaving his muscles at her touch. "When she said you were always a good eater, I told her you'll still eat pretty much anything that doesn't crawl off the plate."

She laughed softly when he said, 'Actually ...' and told him, "I didn't bother to mention the crickets."

Steve turned his hand over and laced their fingers as she went on. "And that's when she told me you were such a good baby. Never cried unless you were hungry or needed a diaper change. And," Catherine's thumb ran over the veins on the inside of his wrist, "that your dad loved to take you out, just the two of you, on his days off."

"I wish I remembered …" His voice trailed off, but at the mention of John, Steve's expression had softened further, and a hint of smile appeared.

"He'd tell her you were going for a little ride and then you'd be gone for hours, until your bedtime."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I know she's …" Catherine shook her head. "But she meant that, Steve. And she absolutely meant the part about how your father loved spending time with you even when you were a baby. According to what he told her, his buddies would be jealous because you were so pleasant and easy to care for."

"Thank you," he said quietly. "I'm glad you told me. If she'd have told me then I wouldn't have …" he shrugged his shoulders slightly. "But from you, I believe it."

"I'm glad I remembered. Chin's story about the birth announcement reminded me." She smiled softly. "I could just picture it when she said their friends thought you were such a sweet baby." Catherine squeezed his fingers as he relaxed further and kissed her hand.

"That was before my first impression issues, huh?" The corner of his mouth turned up and Catherine leaned over as far as the seat belt would allow and kissed his cheek.

"I liked the first impression you made on me."

"Well, there's one." His grin grew. "The one that counted most."

"Grace loved you from day one and you know it."

"Okay, _two_." He chuckled. "Unless you count Cammie."

Catherine laughed again, thinking about how their dog immediately took to Steve. "And that list is growing quickly." She gave his fingers another gentle squeeze. "When I remembered that conversation today, I thought you should know. Especially the part about your dad taking you out on his days off."

Steve nodded and returned the squeeze of her fingers. They rode in relaxed silence for a few minutes with Catherine smiling at the fact she'd added to his short list of happy family stories.

* * *

 **Later that evening**

Steve was dozing in front of the TV, his head in Catherine's lap as she gently played with his hair. "Twelve pounds, huh?"

He smiled slowly but his eyes remained closed. "And seven ounces."

She bent to kiss him, her hands cradling his face, hair sweeping down to touch his cheek. "I'm amazed Mary's here at all because, _wow_." She chuckled.

"Impressed?" He grinned against her lips.

"Not a bit," she teased. "And how is it this never came up in the almost nineteen years since we met?"

He opened his eyes and found hers. "It didn't?"

"Nope."

"Because _I_ happen toknow _you_ weighed seven pounds, eleven ounces and were twenty one inches long." Steve smiled proudly.

"Okay, I _know_ I never told you that, McGarrett …" She laughed at how almost absurdly happy it made her that he could rattle off that information.

"Grandma Ang and I have had our discussions." His eyes closed again and she could tell by his breathing he was seconds away from falling asleep.

"Hey." She tapped his nose and smiled. "You with me?"

"Mmm hmm," he murmured drowsily. "Forever."

Her eyes lit and when she bent to kiss him again, she felt his lips curve up under hers. "Same here. Forever."

.

 _End - thanks for reading_

* * *

 **I'd be remiss here without a nod to my dad, who weighed in at 13+ lbs and 24" long. At a home birth in 1921. Yeah.**

 _Keep track of all the REAL World stories on our Tumblr page - mcrollintherealworld at tumblr dot com_

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 _You can still order a copy of Nonna's gift to Catherine,_ _Twelve Days of Cooking with Nonna_ _, complete with notes from nonna to Catherine, and/or join our mailing list by emailing us: realmcroll at yahoo dot com with_ _ **Nonna's cookbook**_ _or_ _ **add me, please!**_ _in the subject line._


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